Comments

There is probably no solving Iraq. The only real solution is putting a ton more troops in there and re-taking the country-which isn't going to happen.
The only thing we can do is get ready for the fall out. Iraq is going to make the Taliban look like the Seattle city council.

I agree with that. The problem now, besides the intractable situation in the country, isn't a lack of plans. It's a lack of competent execution. The Bush Administration has no one who has the brains and experience necessary to solve a Rubik's cube, let alone an fiasco like Iraq.

The standard Bush approach -- appoint a few well-connected nincompoops to manage the handover of billions to the usual select contractors, in exchange for virtually nothing, has been tried, and found wanting, not just in Iraq but in Afghanistan and New Orleans. The Bushies have gone without giving a damn what happens to anyone except their inner circle of friends for so long, they've forgotten how to accomplish things, if they ever knew. The President certainly never did; he's never accomplished anything under his own power in his entire life.

Plans? We've got loads of plans. The New Republic printed a series of a dozen well-thought-out plans recently. But the same people are going to execute whatever The Decider eventually decides as got us into this mess in the first place.

Stranger writers are always faulting the Weekly, PI, and Times for printing stories that the Stranger has covered first without crediting the Stranger. Yet this: "Tacoma bank-robbing Army Ranger says his 'hypothetical motive' for the alleged robbery was US war crimes in Iraq." is exactly what the Weekly's cover story said last week, and Sarah Mirk didn't bother to credit the Weekly at all. Hypocrite.

While normally I would be eager to hear what this Ranger has to say about war crimes committed by his buddies, I have to say that hearing it from a lowlife bank robber isn't going to work for me. Credibility matters, and this guy sounds like a complete knob.

Gee Goreedgo, a normal person might consider the fact that the item in question links DIRECTLY to the Seattle PI article itself as constituting a form of accreditation.

And since it's the PI publishing the article, NOT The Stranger, maybe your incoherent ranting would have more effect if you jumped over to one of their forums and anonymously castigating THEM for failing to credit The Weakly's previous article on the subject.

The E.Coli thing is indicative of a serious problem with our food supply. It's not Taco Bell (though this is the second major food-poisoning episode with green onions at the chain in the past five years); it's Taco Bell's supplier, and their supplier. The onions were tainted in the field or in the initial processing stages, when they were "washed" (with what, exactly?)

The E.Coli probably comes from animal waste in the water. That waste probably comes from the oceans of infected sewage that runs off of cattle processing yards and dairies. The cattle are sick because they eat a slurry of corn and beef tallow, which they cannot digest properly (being ruminants or grass eaters), and which lowers the acidity of their stomachs that normally kills the natural E.Coli.

Or it could be deer or other semi-wild animals driven out of their habitat by development.

The problem with the food supply is that there is no way to track or control these infected products as they move through our industrialized system. They've been processed and repackaged so many times by the time they arrive at Taco Bell that no one knows where the hell it comes from.

1. You missed my point. If the situation were reversed and the Weekly printed a story and credited the PI when the Stranger had printed a larger, earlier article on the same subject, you bet the Stranger would cry foul. Again, hypocrites.

The news item is about same-sex unions, although I learned something astonishing in the article. Rabbis have been "permitting Jews to drive to synagogue on the Sabbath" since the mid-80s? Who do these guys think they are, rewriting scripture like that?

This is a blog. If Sarah had written an article about the bank robber, it would be her responsibility to track down which newspaper scooped the story first. When putting together a list of interesting articles to read, it hardly makes sense to expect the same standards from Ms. Mirk as would apply to a published article.

Anyway, if the Ranger was so interested in making a statement about war crimes, he should have robbed the federal government, not private businesses.

The ranger's political motives seem to relate directly to the fact that Canada's extradition laws contain an exemption for political crimes. By claiming that his intention was to expose war crimes committed by the U.S. armed forces, he can thereby contest his extradition on political grounds.

He also claims to have evidence of atrocities he witnessed, which might prove interesting if it's true.